I have a Bashsea Pro 48" sump under a Marine Land 265. I have the sump water level at 8-8.5 inches. Lately, everyday in the morning I find the sump level has risen to 10" and according to my Apex, the salinity has its normal .2 to .3 24-hour fluctuation. (I have a Regal INT250 Skimmer) I remove @ 3 to 4 gallons of water from the sump to reduce the water level only to be at 10" the next day. I'm using a Tunze Osmolator 3 ATO with float valve which I installed as safety measure. This is making tuning the skimmer impossible. I'm reaching out for possible reasons/solutions. Thanks in advance!
Sump water Level Mystery
- Thread starter Big Rev
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twentyleagues
5000 Club Member
Have you checked the sg with anything else? sensor could be off or malfunctioning. Do you have a top off reservoir? If so is the level going down by the amount the sump is going up? Return pump issue could be the case also.
I use a Milwaukee to confirm salinity. The Apex just monitors consistency. I do have a 30 gallon reservoir that is continuously filled from ro/di. It feeds two tanks. Can you explain further about return pump?
Kershaw
2500 Club Member
I can’t speak to why you SG has stayed with in range, likely because it’s small compared to the size of your tank. But I absolutely hate the tunze osmolator 3. I currently use it and I had to add a Water level sensor to my hydros to shut it off because it would over fill. I did work with tunze tech support and they were great, however the sensor is too sensitive and over fills with the smallest amount of water movement.
Tunze claims it’s due to pulsing of DC pumps. So it could be skimmer, UV light and return pump. I have cleaned them all and tunze has replaced the sensor twice. Once when it melted in my sump and once for it over filling.
Tunze claims it’s due to pulsing of DC pumps. So it could be skimmer, UV light and return pump. I have cleaned them all and tunze has replaced the sensor twice. Once when it melted in my sump and once for it over filling.
twentyleagues
5000 Club Member
if the return pump is "dirty" it can restrict flow which depending on how your "drain" is set up could cause a fluctuating water level in the sump. Same can go for the skimmer if the water fluctuates within the skimmer allowing more or less water to be in the sump.
You may be on to something here. When I get the level set and the Tunze light is green, it's always fully submerged by 1.5 inches or so exactly at the level where my backup float valve is and stops the flow. If it weren't for that float valve it might have filled even more.
Problem solved. Back siphon! The connector that I drilled a hole in to prevent back siphon got turned around and submerged in the ATO reservoir. Twisted it back, levels now stabilizing. I found out because I disconnected the ATO pump from power, yet the water level in the sump remained unchanged after 2 days. (I expected the level to drop due to evaporation.) when I looked in the reservoir, I saw that hole was submerged! Answer, back siphon.
BryanM
7500 Club Member
Nice find. This would drive me nuts.
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